It’s a SEO battlefield
This article was ghostwritten for an SEO business owner as part of his thought leadership content strategy.
And Google is running the bias media coverage
Every agency has a collection of knowledge on SEO and every client looks to their agency to understand the tangle of changing Google algorithms. As ad agencies and SEO agencies alike continue to manage the pandas from the penguins, the organic battlefield is getting smaller and smaller, soon rendering SEO an impossible investment for most of our clients.
While the Internet is flooded with SEO predictions at the start of every year, four months into 2017 and my prediction for the changing scape of SEO and paid searches is a little less “know the new algorithm” and a little more “change strategies before you are forced to.”
Year on year we are seeing the reduction of truly organic spaces on Google. First, there was the introduction of Google directory listings and now we have category pages within directory sites being boosted to occupy top spots. Looking for some pizza delivery on a Saturday night? Forget using Google to find the actual pizzeria website because Facebook, UberEats, and Zomato will have the content you are looking for and the budget Google is looking for.
Herein lies the next problem (or solution), money. Ad spaces are reducing and while this may seem like a blessing for the SEO converts, don’t be fooled, these spots have already been taken over by the directory listings like our pizza example above. What it does mean is a higher CPC and CPM as the big multinationals battle over coveted ad space. My prediction is that only the ones that can truly afford to run at a negative ROI per internet acquisition will be able to afford any paid searches or display ads.
Why would they continue to advertise then? It is simply to drive out competition, making their site the only one that people will click on for search results. It is as simple as that; the conglomerates will reign supreme thanks to the power of the dollar.
So, with less ad spaces driving up the CPC, more junk (aka directory) results taking over organic spaces, and fewer truly organic positions to be had on page one, the days of a viable SEO strategy for SME are numbered. The thing we can look to is a change that may render some hope – AI. Let me explain …
What SEO currently relies on is the fact that we know exactly what we are looking for and that we are able to type it very succinctly into a search field. In 2017 we are evolving away from that assumption and therefore moving from ‘content’ to ‘context’. Google’s own AI, RankBrain, is essentially more equipped to interpret our behaviour online and therefore match our searches based on website context. It won’t just be about our search history, location, and web behaviour; RankBrain will be able to understand us with more psychographic depth and therefore interpret our searches more accurately.
AI for users might seem like eons away, but we are already using the internet in an AI kind of way – Hey, Siri – meaning that text searches will be less and less relevant. Google will be able to interpret context based on videos, images, and voice without the need for meta-tags. These kinds of advancements are happening now and may help alleviate the predicted take-over, giving SME’s the chance to be found by their users.
Having said that, my bet is on Google continuing to prioritise money … but hey, that’s just me.